Jamie Park

The $29 tent that started everything

I'm a software engineer. I write code for a living, stare at screens all day, and before 2022, the closest I got to "the outdoors" was eating lunch on a park bench.

Then a friend convinced me to join a weekend camping trip in Olympic National Park. I had four days to prepare and zero camping knowledge. So I did what any reasonable person does: I typed "camping tent" into Amazon, filtered by price, and bought the first one that looked decent. $29. Two-star reviews in hindsight.

It rained that night. The tent was not waterproof. I spent most of the night with a trash bag over my sleeping bag, watching water pool on the floor, and thinking — there has to be a better way to figure out what gear you actually need.

An engineer's solution to a gear problem

Back home, I did what engineers do: I built a system. I spent weeks reading gear reviews, Reddit threads, YouTube comparisons, and Amazon Q&As. I made spreadsheets. I wrote scripts to scrape ratings.

What I found was that most people buying camping gear are just like me — they don't know what they need, and the information is scattered everywhere. The right tent for a solo backpacker is completely different from what a family of four needs for a car camping weekend. Obvious in hindsight, but no single tool existed to just ask you what you need and give you a list.

So I built one. TrailPackList started as a personal spreadsheet. Then a small web app. Then this — a free tool that generates a personalized gear checklist based on your specific trip, with direct links to real products on Amazon and REI.

A note on honesty

I want to be upfront: I'm not a seasoned outdoor expert. I'm not a professional gear tester with a garage full of expensive equipment. I'm someone who researches carefully, thinks systematically, and has made enough mistakes to know what questions a beginner should actually be asking.

The products on this site are selected through research — reviews, specs, price-to-quality ratios, and community feedback. Not personal long-term testing of every item. If you're a serious mountaineer or thru-hiker, you'll want deeper expert sources. But if you're a beginner trying to figure out what to pack for your first camping trip, this tool was made for exactly you.